How to find an email verification tool that fits your needs

Finding an email verification tool online or an application for your desktop takes a little work. Before you start googling to find solutions, there are several things you need to understand about your email marketing practices “first” before choosing the right one. We have written ‘many times over’ that validation and verification are two separate things and many still do not understand the significance – even hygiene companies! But, once again, we think it’s important to go over both of those words so you can get a good idea as to what they mean and get you ready to search for the right tool.

Validation

According to dictionary.com, validation is, “the action of checking or proving the validity or accuracy of something” or “the action of making or declaring something legally or officially acceptable”

Verification

According to dictionary.com, Verification is, “the process of establishing the truth, accuracy, or validity of something”.

Unfortunately, both definitions are the same thing if you really dig deep. I hear both definitions for each at shows and parties, so the industry seems to still be confused by the definitions. To simplify the terms, validation is everything before the at sign and verification is everything after the at sign. Validation focuses on the email names by matching and removing threats, syntax errors and bots while verification focuses on the domain and where it is hosted.

Some computer geeks, like me, will balk at the terms because validation does more than what I mentioned above and vice versa with verification. I get it. But explaining it more simple is better for the company that are not as technical as we are. I have found that the more technical you write, the more you lose your audience.

So how do we find an email verification tool that will fit the needs of an email marketer? Since now we know verification decides the truth if the email is deliverable or not based on questions asked about the domain, we can now use the right search terms to find the right application. A simple Google/Bing/Yahoo search of these words works really well:

Look for the company that talks about bounce removal and deliverability. Verification really focuses on removing all bounces. In fact, the verification company should remove at least 98% if they understand what they are doing.